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Subject Area: Political Theory
Topic: The American Revolution and Constitution

TO THE INHABITANTS OF ARLINGTON AND SANDGATE, VERMONT. - John Adams, The Works of John Adams, vol. 9 (Letters and State Papers 1799-1811) [1854]

Edition used:

The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: with a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations, by his Grandson Charles Francis Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1856). 10 volumes. Vol. 9.

Part of: The Works of John Adams, 10 vols.

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


TO THE INHABITANTS OF ARLINGTON AND SANDGATE, VERMONT.

Gentlemen,

I thank you for this address, which has been presented to me by Mr. Chipman, one of your senators in Congress.

Sentiments like yours, which have been entertained for years, it would be at this time inexcusable not to express. If you have long seen foreign influence prevailing and endangering the peace and independence of our country, so have I. If you have long seen, with painful sensations, the exertions of dangerous and restless men, misleading the understandings of our wellmeaning citizens, and prompting them to such measures as would sink the glory of our country and prostrate her liberties at the feet of France, so also have I.

I have seen in the conduct of the French nation, for the last twelve years, a repetition of their character displayed under Louis the fourteenth, and little more, excepting the extravagances, which have been intermixed with it, of the wildest philosophy which was ever professed in this world, since the building of Babel, and the fables of the giants, who, by piling mountains on mountains, invaded the skies. If the spell is broken, let human nature exult and rejoice. The veil may be removed from the eyes of many, but I fear, not of all. The snare is not yet entirely broken, and we are not yet escaped.

If you have no attachments or exclusive friendship for any foreign nation, you possess the genuine character of true Americans.

The pledge of yourselves and dearest enjoyments, to support the measures of government, shows that your ideas are adequate to the national dignity, and that you are worthy to enjoy its independence and sovereignty.

Your prayers for my life and usefulness are too affecting to me to be enlarged upon.

John Adams.